Establishing Relevance to Enhance Student Learning

I found the link to this site, Faculty Focus, through a tweet by Larry Ferzzalo, a California teacher. The article, Establishing Relevance to Student Learning, is interesting because it strikes a chord that we are told about when we get our teaching licenses. What I especially liked about the article were these suggestions (and I am quoting directly from the article):

• What? What are we doing in class today? What questions will we try to answer? What concepts will we address? What questions will we answer? What activities will we do?
• Why? Why are we studying this? How are today’s content and activities tied to the course learning outcomes? What should I know or be able to do after today’s class? How can the information and skills be used in everyday life?
• How? How are we going to address the content? Will we use lectures? Activities? Discussions? How will different learning styles be accommodated?

I sometimes try to tie relevance within my lessons (like comparing piracy in the Indian Ocean today with similar obstacles in the postclassical period) but I never post relevancy with the agenda. But after reading the article, I like the idea and will start trying to incorporate relevancy statements and questions with the agenda.